The Dark House Series is a collection of stories, each with a new narrator, but all connected in some way. The setting is Gothic Horror with an Eldritch leanings.
The world is plagued with the restless spirits of the undead, and being an exorcist is an important job in the community. After A great war between four supernatural fractions, a treaty is signed, but tensions are high. The peace is kept for nearly 14 years, and the threat of another war looms on the horizon as the new generation navigate their powers and uncover a conspiracy going back hundreds of years.
1) Dark House
- Craig is apprentice to Sharon Rockwell, the best exorcist in the country, hoping to mask his true ability that would get him drafted into the first clan to find out his real power. He finds that the small, sleeping town of Auguston hides more secrets then he first thought.
2) Deep Wells
- Darcy, A wealthy aristocrat invites all her friends to a summer mansion, to reveal that she is dying from an Incurable Cough of Death, and doesn't have long, and wants to right the wrongs of her past. Her families sins, however, come crawling out of the floorboards to avenge themselves.
3) Tar Valley
- Mark, a normal teenager finds out he's part of an ancient clan of hunters, blessed with supernatural strength and abilities to fight the creatures that haunt the night. He finds himself in the middle of a cold war between factions, and they all want him.
4) Infinity Complex
- A Young Hunter tasks herself to clean out the infamous Complex, where no one that goes in comes out alive. That is until she finds a young man who doesn't know who he is within the complex. Together they find the reason no one comes back out.
5) Midnight Asylum
- After the events of the first book, Amity finds herself in an asylum as apart of her plan and meets several other people with powers like her. The Asylum was created over the remains of a bombed sector 13 which housed children with powers.
Tropes
- Apocalyptic Log: Dr. John's research turns into this, it's what hints that he's been possessed
- The tape recorder in the DreamScape.
- Bedlam House: Subverted with Midnight Psychiatric Hospital for Adolescents. The staff truly wants to help the patients heal. Then the Possessed Dr. John takes over...
- Double Subverted: They are absolutley prepared to lock inmates up, use force and unconventional means to subdue them. At once point, one gave Phil a concussion to make him stop screaming when sedatives weren't enough.
- Bedsheet Ghost: The Ghast in Annabelle's room.
- Chekhov's Gunman: The Little girl that was given help to escape Sector 13 is actually Amity's grandmother. The rest of the children appear grown up later on.
- Coldblooded Torture: Levi's backstory, along with several other ghosts.
- Fights Like a Normal: Amity has unreliable empathic powers, so has to rely on her own skills.
- Ghost Amnesia: Levi, the classical fuzzy memory spirit.
- Then Subverted in the short story. Levi remembers EXACTLY how he died.
- there where hints that he was lying from the start. Then the prequel revealed that he was the angriest spirit and started the attack on the ringers in a fit of rage.
- Ghost City: The Dreamscape is basically this. Clearly Silent Hill was being channeled.
- Grand Theft Me: Dr. John. Amity as off the end of Midnight Asylum
- Hero of Another Story: This is a running theme through all the books where other people's actions lead up to helping with the main story.
- most of them meet up in the next book
- Kill It with Fire: A common tactic by the Ghasts.
- The only way to kill the Drawn Monsters is to find their anchors and burn them.
- Kill It with Water: Only one ghast partakes in this. It fit's with the Bloody Mary theme.
- I See Dead People: A side effect of Empathy.
- Lineage Comes from the Father: Subverted then played with when it's clear that Amity inherited her sensing powers from her mother but her statistic warping powers from her father. which no one noticed until the second book in the series.
- Occult Detective: Amity becomes this, John has shades of this as well in the last book.
- Our Ghosts Are Different: The essence of a person trapped were they died, which is called a 'ghast' is more common then the traditional broading ghost. At times it's hard to tell what's what.
- Power Incontinence: Amity suffers from this when around strong emotion.
Word of God says if she turned right in the cellar, it would have drove her mad.- Her mother actually suffered this.
- Stringy-Haired Ghost Girl: It's mentioned that one was standing at the top window, but Amity does not run into her through the coarse of the series.
- Torture Cellar: There is one under the house that is quiet large. But after Annabelle returns, it becomes bigger.
- Took a Level in Badass: John Carver, already Made of Iron but starts to really show when he goes from screaming at the sight of Dark One to tackling a Mist Monster with his bare hands.
- What Happened to the Mouse?? Melody, Annabelle’s older sister has been stated not to have been murdered by Dark One, but nothing else has been said.
